RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A total of 16,186 turkeys were harvested in Virginia during the 2018 spring gobbler season, a 14 percent decrease from last year.
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said the drop in the harvest was not unexpected. The agency said the recruitment of young turkeys into the state’s turkey population was low in 2016. That resulted in a decrease in the number of 2-year-old gobblers available for hunters to harvest in 2018.
Hunters also faced challenging weather conditions, with extended stretches of hot days, cold and windy days, and rainy days. Those conditions typically result in poor hunting success rates.